Posts: 244
Threads: 142
Joined: Jan 2014
Reputation:
113
I'm just kind of curious as to where everyone is at now at seasons-end? Personally, my confidence level with the decision makers at the very top of this organization have not been this low since Red McCombs and Mike Tice were calling the shots:
- I think the Wilfs (while I admire their enthusiasm) don't have the slightest clue how to build a winning franchise. They are fans and make decisions like fans, even if it's not in the best interest of the franchise. That goes from extending Brad Childress after one good season where Favre carried the team, to going all in on this season when the sensible thing to do after making wholesale changes was to rebuild. Instead, we are in no man's land essentially with roster holes everywhere and salary cap issues to once again juggle. Their decision to hire KAM was hugely questionable at best.
- Speaking of KAM, I've been highly critical of him and the decisions he's made since being put in charge. His first draft was a disaster (not sure how else you classify it) and the lack of impact from this draft was a huge reason we didn't go any farther than we did. Not a single defensive draft pick made any sort of impact. His free agency additions fizzled down the stretch and this team won what we did on the fumes of what was left over from the Zimmer/Spielman era. I'll give him credit for Hockenson, but is anybody paying big money to any TE not named Kelce? That's a decision that will have to be weighed out this offseason or next. To me the verdict is still out on O'Connell and I'm not sure that hiring him over Harbaugh was ultimately the right decision.
- KOC, while I like him and think he did a good job with some things on offense, I'm not sure he was the best choice as head coach. I think most anybody could have squeezed offensive production out of what we had left in the pantry, but he also felt Donatell was the guy he wanted to run the defense and oversee this transition to a new scheme. That was his hire and his decision to do so was the biggest reason we didn't advance. Donatell was a disaster, a historically bad disaster, and KOC can choke on that decision all offseason because it was his own. I think most everybody knew Ed Donatell was a shit coach when he was hired, so how that escaped KOC...I have no idea, but it doesn't inspire any confidence in his decision making going forward.
My fear is we are prolonging an inevitable rebuild that really needed to start last offseason. We are going to try and squeeze every last ounce and mortgage the future to be competitive the next couple years to appease the Wilfs without ever being good enough to be legitimate contenders. This franchise is due for an overhaul. Laugh at Pace and the Bears all you want, but I can guarantee in two years they will have built it up the right way after tearing things down and will be long term contenders while the Vikings flounder because of decisions made at the top.
Pretty high
One year in and they won the division. KAM and KOC will or at least should get better at decision making. I was honestly surprised by some of the cuts made this past offseason. Hard decisions will be made and I think KAM can make them. I don’t think there is a reason to think he wouldn’t want to put the best product out there.
The Wilf family just needs to stay out of the way a little bit. I know they wanted a soft retooling instead of a complete rebuild, which I agree with. Blowing up a roster just because never made sense to me.
Pinning Donatell on KOC is fair, however you have to look at the big picture that is the NFL coaching tree. Sometimes coordinators want more control or freedom to do what they want, or see the personnel on a team and say, Nope!We don’t know who was talked to or who was considered besides Donatell. Maybe other coaches didn’t want to attach themselves to KOC, thinking he’s young and it could hurt their career. You never know all the details.
Depth is something that will probably be lacking for at least another year. The decisions that take place this off season will impact that. You can’t do wholesale cuts and expect to be deep.
I hope this draft goes well, I hope they fix some of the problems on the defensive side of the ball, while still trying to add weapons and good depth on the O line.
Speaking of the O line, they were good at times, and they were bad at times. But, they were better than the past and they did see some young players step up and contribute. Brandel has become a very good swing tackle IMO, and honestly Bradbury stepped up his game. They’ll need to resign or replace this offseason. Is the o line elite? No, but name the starting 5 O linemen for the 6 Super Bowls Belicheat won.
I’m good with the path the Vikings are on. We’ll see in a few years who was right.
We could both be wrong.
Quote: @"Riphawkins" said:
Pretty high
One year in and they won the division. KAM and KOC will or at least should get better at decision making. I was honestly surprised by some of the cuts made this past offseason. Hard decisions will be made and I think KAM can make them. I don’t think there is a reason to think he wouldn’t want to put the best product out there.
The Wilf family just needs to stay out of the way a little bit. I know they wanted a soft retooling instead of a complete rebuild, which I agree with. Blowing up a roster just because never made sense to me.
Pinning Donatell on KOC is fair, however you have to look at the big picture that is the NFL coaching tree. Sometimes coordinators want more control or freedom to do what they want, or see the personnel on a team and say, Nope!We don’t know who was talked to or who was considered besides Donatell. Maybe other coaches didn’t want to attach themselves to KOC, thinking he’s young and it could hurt their career. You never know all the details.
Depth is something that will probably be lacking for at least another year. The decisions that take place this off season will impact that. You can’t do wholesale cuts and expect to be deep.
I hope this draft goes well, I hope they fix some of the problems on the defensive side of the ball, while still trying to add weapons and good depth on the O line.
Speaking of the O line, they were good at times, and they were bad at times. But, they were better than the past and they did see some young players step up and contribute. Brandel has become a very good swing tackle IMO, and honestly Bradbury stepped up his game. They’ll need to resign or replace this offseason. Is the o line elite? No, but name the starting 5 O linemen for the 6 Super Bowls Belicheat won.
I’m good with the path the Vikings are on. We’ll see in a few years who was right.
We could both be wrong.
to many moving parts and variables, you will never be able to say who is right or wrong, thats the maddening part of these debates, there is rarely ever a definitive answer.
Personally, I like the approach of using some draft stock for proven players.
Rick frustrated me with his “quantity” of picks - had to get to ten......six of which wouldnt make the roster. I still dont like Kwesi trading within the division, its almost like he was trying to prove something (other than giving our rivals talent that we otherwise could be taking). For all his posturing about “analytics” there are things that cannot be measured on a football field, heart, moxie, perseverance, work ethic, etc. what did analytics say about John Randle? about Theilen ? Now, Im not looking for boy scouts, but if there is a guy that you know is gonna tear up the league, why wait? Figure out a way to pull the trigger.
where am I? Ive flatlined after ‘09. Im old and come to the realization I may not get there with all of you good people.
Going into year 2 I have more confidence in KOC than KAM
But as Jimmy posted, lots of moving parts and I have a lot more data points at this time on KOC than I do KAM.
Agree with the OP, that first draft left too much to be desired - so far.
Regular season was a wild ride and hard to de-cipher. But they did make the post-season and won the Norris. Those accomplishments are pretty good for year 1.
Give em a day to pat themselves on the back for that. They we'll see how they can build a roster that can make a playoff run and not just get a tix to the dance.
Quote: @"Riphawkins" said:
Pretty high
One year in and they won the division. KAM and KOC will or at least should get better at decision making. I was honestly surprised by some of the cuts made this past offseason. Hard decisions will be made and I think KAM can make them. I don’t think there is a reason to think he wouldn’t want to put the best product out there.
The Wilf family just needs to stay out of the way a little bit. I know they wanted a soft retooling instead of a complete rebuild, which I agree with. Blowing up a roster just because never made sense to me.
Pinning Donatell on KOC is fair, however you have to look at the big picture that is the NFL coaching tree. Sometimes coordinators want more control or freedom to do what they want, or see the personnel on a team and say, Nope!We don’t know who was talked to or who was considered besides Donatell. Maybe other coaches didn’t want to attach themselves to KOC, thinking he’s young and it could hurt their career. You never know all the details.
Depth is something that will probably be lacking for at least another year. The decisions that take place this off season will impact that. You can’t do wholesale cuts and expect to be deep.
I hope this draft goes well, I hope they fix some of the problems on the defensive side of the ball, while still trying to add weapons and good depth on the O line.
Speaking of the O line, they were good at times, and they were bad at times. But, they were better than the past and they did see some young players step up and contribute. Brandel has become a very good swing tackle IMO, and honestly Bradbury stepped up his game. They’ll need to resign or replace this offseason. Is the o line elite? No, but name the starting 5 O linemen for the 6 Super Bowls Belicheat won.
I’m good with the path the Vikings are on. We’ll see in a few years who was right.
We could both be wrong.
Well, here is the situation. The Vikings are 7.4 million OVER the projected salary cap for 2023. We have a lot of older veteran players that we will need to make decisions on. There is not a single free agent on this roster I would bring back (including Bradbury) and what do we do with Cousins moving forward, who is once again going into the final year of his contract and will be 35 years old. We drafted 10 players last year and we have no idea if any of them can play or add any sort of quality depth. We have needs along the defensive line, at linebacker, we have no idea if any of the young corners on the roster are any good so does this also become a need? Thielen likely will be a salary cut in June, so finding a starting caliber receiver somewhere that can take the double and triple teams off JJ becomes a priority. We traded off draft picks for Reagor and Hockenson.
This team has huge question marks up and down the roster and I simply do not trust this front office to make the right decisions when the right decision was to blow this thing up last offseason. I would have gladly taken a 5-12 season this year with Baker Mayfield at the helm (per say), salary cap room, extra draft picks, and a top 5 draft pick heading into next season. Instead, we blew our wads trying to piece this together with duct tape, got bounced in the first round of the playoffs, and once again have to address the same problems and issues as last offseason.
Sounds like Harbaugh could land in Denver, they’re probably looking for new fans…  B)
I see both sides of the argument. I was for blowing things up last offseason but I also can’t overlook what a fun season this was and how we won 13 games.
KAM’s first draft— to date, it’s early— looks really bad. But Z Smith was solid, affordable, and better than anyone else we have. Reagor stinks but didn’t cost much. And Hockenson is awesome and I don’t see how anyone can question that move while comparing KAM to Rick. RS is the reason we needed Hockenson!! Rudolph, John freaking Carlson, Irv Smith, Chris Herndon, not resigning Conklin… RS bungled the TE position numerous times over so I’m not going to complain that KAM brought in a guy who can actually play, at a pretty fair price.
KO was a first year HC who made mistakes and will hopefully improve. Some do, some don’t. But he is certainly no total stiff and I am excited about the future with him.
We might still need to blow things up because the defense is so bad, but considering that was apparently against the owner’s direct wishes, I’m not sure what else KAM could have done outside of hindsighting draft day. He fielded a good team that won the division for the first time in 5 years. Saying your confidence is at a 20 year low considering some of the years we’ve had in that timespan seems a bit hyperbolic.
I will get back to y'all on this once a decision is made regarding the DC.
Quote: @"supafreak84" said:
@"Riphawkins" said:
Pretty high
One year in and they won the division. KAM and KOC will or at least should get better at decision making. I was honestly surprised by some of the cuts made this past offseason. Hard decisions will be made and I think KAM can make them. I don’t think there is a reason to think he wouldn’t want to put the best product out there.
The Wilf family just needs to stay out of the way a little bit. I know they wanted a soft retooling instead of a complete rebuild, which I agree with. Blowing up a roster just because never made sense to me.
Pinning Donatell on KOC is fair, however you have to look at the big picture that is the NFL coaching tree. Sometimes coordinators want more control or freedom to do what they want, or see the personnel on a team and say, Nope!We don’t know who was talked to or who was considered besides Donatell. Maybe other coaches didn’t want to attach themselves to KOC, thinking he’s young and it could hurt their career. You never know all the details.
Depth is something that will probably be lacking for at least another year. The decisions that take place this off season will impact that. You can’t do wholesale cuts and expect to be deep.
I hope this draft goes well, I hope they fix some of the problems on the defensive side of the ball, while still trying to add weapons and good depth on the O line.
Speaking of the O line, they were good at times, and they were bad at times. But, they were better than the past and they did see some young players step up and contribute. Brandel has become a very good swing tackle IMO, and honestly Bradbury stepped up his game. They’ll need to resign or replace this offseason. Is the o line elite? No, but name the starting 5 O linemen for the 6 Super Bowls Belicheat won.
I’m good with the path the Vikings are on. We’ll see in a few years who was right.
We could both be wrong.
Well, here is the situation. The Vikings are 7.4 million OVER the projected salary cap for 2023. We have a lot of older veteran players that we will need to make decisions on. There is not a single free agent on this roster I would bring back (including Bradbury) and what do we do with Cousins moving forward, who is once again going into the final year of his contract and will be 35 years old. We drafted 10 players last year and we have no idea if any of them can play or add any sort of quality depth. We have needs along the defensive line, at linebacker, we have no idea if any of the young corners on the roster are any good so does this also become a need? Thielen likely will be a salary cut in June, so finding a starting caliber receiver somewhere that can take the double and triple teams off JJ becomes a priority. We traded off draft picks for Reagor and Hockenson.
This team has huge question marks up and down the roster and I simply do not trust this front office to make the right decisions when the right decision was to blow this thing up last offseason. I would have gladly taken a 5-12 season this year with Baker Mayfield at the helm (per say), salary cap room, extra draft picks, and a top 5 draft pick heading into next season. Instead, we blew our wads trying to piece this together with duct tape, got bounced in the first round of the playoffs, and once again have to address the same problems and issues as last offseason.
We cut/trade Z. Smith, Cook, and Kendricks and suddenly we're in the neighborhood of +22 million in cap space. Like you mentioned there's no way Harry and Theilen are going to be brought back at their current deals, and ISJ and Reagor and his 2.4 million will be gone. Money won't be the issue. Lack of draft capital and the ability to move up or down is. I also don't know if this team has the scouting to see defensive talent, or the patience to build from the trenches out.
|
